Aniane Fox
Aniane Fox, or Annie as she prefers to be called, is the stubborn, redheaded manager of the Smoking Blade Tavern in Stormwind City. She is also a member of the criminal organization The Old Town Syndicate, though she puts a good deal of effort into making both herself and the Blade appear as legitimate as possible. Biography Lost Child, Practical Wanderer Annie's mother died of a fever before her daughter was old enough to walk. Annie's father spent his days fishing and his nights drinking, and the less he was around, the happier Annie was. When she finally ran away, she wandered through Hillsbrad, stealing any food that she could and barely surviving. After some months she fell in with a group of hill-bandits, the outcasts of society scraping away a living by 'borrowing' what they could from the local farmers. Annie spent the next several years with them, during which time she developed a very strong sense of loyalty and camaraderie that, although it lay dormant for many years, resurfaced in her involvement with the Old Town Syndicate. Living among the bandits was a certain Lord Dorian Andural, a former noble of the ravaged kingdom of Alterac. Annie developed a relationship with him when she was about sixteen and Dorian passed on many of his skills to her, including how to read, how to fight properly, and most notably, the art of brewing various potions, poisons, elixirs, and draughts which Annie practices enthusiastically to this day. After a few years, Dorian, who had become the de facto leader of the bandits, decided it would be beneficial for them to join up with the Syndicate, the squabbling but influential criminal organisation that had formed from the ruins of Alterac's nobility. However, after making the move to combine, the members of the tight-knit little group were dispersed among the various houses of the Syndicate. Soon afterwards, Dorian was murdered by Lord Athaldrin Silverhand. Annie attempted to avenge Dorian's death by attacking his murderer, but upon failing and being caught, she was beaten and branded. Annie fled from the Syndicate as soon as she was able, and with some help from Maximilian Landry, a spy within the Syndicate whose daughter's life Annie had once attempted to save, she managed to make it safely to Menethil Harbour. She found work doing odd jobs, including gutting fish, tanning hides, sweeping stables, and various other bits of work. Still, she never felt secure in Menethil with the shadow of the Syndicate always looming behind her, and she soon moved south. She spent the next nine years travelling from place to place, taking what jobs she could lay her hands on and making contacts. She never stayed in one location for more than a year, generally leaving for a new one at the first hints of attachment to places or people. Stormwind, the Blade, and the Beginning of Things Eventually Annie's wandering led her to Stormwind, a city she'd visited many times but where she had rarely stayed long. On this occasion, however, she encountered a man named Quinian Keldur who very casually offered her a job with the Old Town Syndicate. Intrigued by the prospect, Annie accepted, and after making a bit of fuss about how she wasn't the type of lass to bat her eyelashes at drunken idiots, she started bartending at the Smoking Blade. She took keenly to the job, to the Old Town Syndicate, and especially, to Quin. After an episode in which he tossed her into the sea and about two nights of making the man sleep on the floor in his own house, she and Quin decided to give things a go. During the next several months, Annie became more and more involved in 'the business' and made friends and enemies with several notable and intriguing characters, including (but certainly not limited to) Zabatou Azardahn, Merandil Haldén, Caleb Calraad, Jaldir Arnot, Kathia De'Cuina, Lilath Taylen, Elegost Dawnweaver, Rentarn Finje, Bordas Gaze and Ledgic Caan. Recent Times After some time, and after the disappearance of Odrade Hearth and the elevation of Quinian to higher work within the Old Town Syndicate, Ledgic Caan asked Annie to be the Blade's new manager. She agreed, with some shock and much pleasure, and has attempted to 'look after' the tavern ever since. In recent months, Annie has made and lost friends, gained enemies, split up with Quin, moved to Booty Bay, broken more than one heart, been stabbed in the side at least four times, been locked up once, been stranded on another planet once, and has more or less fallen in love with Ledgic. Unfortunately she still makes terrible coffee, has not yet developed a very wide vocabulary, and still has an intense fear of fussing babies and very loud death knights. Personality Annie's tendency toward directness and plain speech has occasionally caused her difficulty, especially when that tendency has ended in her roundly insulting someone she believes deserves it. However, she usually manages to keep her tongue in check which results in, if not exactly subtlety, a decent balance between guile and candidness. She has a talent for flirtation which she employs when it suits her, though almost always without malice. Wit and humour are two of the qualities she values most in people and she is very fond of company. Her general attitude toward life is one of extreme pragmatism. Appearance Annie is a small woman, lithe, rough and russet-haired, a couple of years under thirty. She generally wears plain trousers and shirts, or if the occasion requires it, battered leather armour; only a few people can claim to have seen her in a dress. She almost always carries a surpringly elegant dagger set with a red pommel-stone. Her thick northern accent is a mixture of the speech of Hillsbrad and Alterac, with a few added expressions and inflections gathered throughout her travels. Category:Humans Category:Rogues Category:Characters Category:Alliance Characters Category:Alchemists Category:Females